As Maia begins to light the report screens with tracing of the damage, it becomes clear that while the ship is battered, and one of the reaction-mass tanks has been holed, there has yet been no major systems damage - the Old Ben remains fully functional... at least for the moment. As the massive freighter begins to push through it's crazy course, however, the leak from the pressurized vessel pushes it in one all-too-predictable direction as well, enough that the two attacking fighters are able to dive close to the nearly weaponless freighter, using it for cover as they draw the enemy freelancers into their dance.

As the violent swirl erupts around the old ben, the pirates soon show their prowess, their bursts of hard acceleration punctuated with violent twists of the frame, skidding through strafing drifts before darting around another corner of the much larger freighter. In this swirl it is the Kiranti that draws the first bead, her lasers cutting a staggered, interrupted trail of melted metal across the ships frame, moderately damaging it, even as it makes its own retaliatory fire, the blaze of heavy rails slashing its way across the fighter's armor, lighting the bright violet of damage warnings inside its cockpits.

Pouncing next is Kestral, both his forward mounted guns and the tiny turret mounted on the bottom of his vessel shivering to life as they scream with their voice of hypervelocity tungsten slivers. For a split second, they hang in the airless void, their paths far straighter than any arrow ever crafted, before finding their mark in the already damaged vessel with deadly effect. There is an almost eerie silence as the tiny vessel begins to disintegrate, a bright burst of light as the fusion reactor powering the ship loses its containment, and a sudden dull roar, just as sharply ending, as the shockwave of dust passes over the remaining ships. Yet, for Kestral, the ending is not quite so quick, the armor of his fighter screaming in the highest octave, as the thin blue lines of particle beams rip across his vessel, lancing into the maneuvering thrusters, and dealing significant damage to the frame on their way through.

Further away, the guns of the other freighters make their reports within their own vessels, the sounds of the weapons firing ringing through their respective frames, the groan of the rock-thrower, the bark of hypervelocity steel, as Mach and Erik alike fire at the retreating ship, each weapon battering against the retreating boarding vessel, but to little effect.

Her military days have taught Danasheth not to curse over the comm; still, the hits to her fighter were surprising. 'I must really be out of shape!' That, or the pirate was lucky.

Still, no vital system was hit, and her ship accelerated to get to the pirate fighter's six, her guns weaving a net of laser fire to catch him in; aware of where his weapons could reach and where not, she evaded his arc of fire, her programmed ECM routines fooling with his less-than-flawless systems.

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

Having noticed what made his motions so predictable, Alice decided to act:

"Maia, would you kindly send the loader drone to repair the external mass leaks. We're drifting off course."

Alice then connected internally to the ship's system. His implants kicked to life, and Alice was met by the familiar jarring shift of perception to VR. The torn bridge and the dissonant discord of the alarms soon replaced by the placid calm of the artificial whiteness.

Well... It has been a while...

The twisting fighter nearby was now only an insect, moving slowly as if through a thick syrup. The bright cones of death from both Kestral's and Dana's fighter overlapping over the poor soul.

His perception shifted, leaving the dogfight raging around him to a small distraction at the edge of his awareness. The retreating pirate freighter now dazing him as a stream of both visual and intuitive information.

Filtering ruthlessly, the freighter dimmed, the engine flare dissipated, the visual depiction vanished, the weapons systems themselves disappeared at the command of his very thoughts. Very soon, the freighter became pure data, interlinked systems and communication ports.

Alice was home. Maia and Old Ben a mere imperceptible shell of protection around Alice's frail body.

Programming tools came to the surface, called there by his subconscious reflexes. Had you looked at him in real life, Alice had the unnatural stillness of a corpse. Only his lips slowly mouthed: "As for you..."

<ooc> Hacking attempt on pirate freighter, using computing skill at 6. Aim to slow or strand. Attempting Any Means Necessary(tm) (as long as it doesn't kill anybody) to stop them. Using my racial trait : Improvisation.

« Last Edit: April 23, 2009, 11:00:32 AM by dark_dragon »

Logged

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."-Philip K. Dick

Erik scowled at the retreating vessel as he lined up his third - and, for better or worse, last - shot at the battered pirate freighter. "I'd appreciate if y'could hang about a bit longer, if y'd be so kind." The jolt of the titanic mass driver was a perceptible vibration even in the bulky superstructure of the Karloff; the blip of the absurdly swift-moving asteroid made its way across the tactical display as Erik turned his attention to the merchantman. "Boris, bring all the scanners we can to bear on the merchantman. Let's see what lifesigns and damage we can pick out from here, and see if you can lock onto any comm signals through the local ECM noise."

"Affirmative." The ship's voice graft echoed through the bridge, as various panel lights blinked through various color signals. "Analyzing."

Erik watched the data streams, paying as much attention to the fight as to the effort to look over the merchantman; any hostile vessel that thought to turn his direction would be in for a rude surprise, even if he didn't currently want to risk firing at the closer target for the risk of hitting the allied fighter vessels.

Logged

"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

In space, shot timing was even more important than in atmosphere. Hitting the target was a combination of raw skill, a good PMP (Potential Motion Plotter) targeting device, and more than a smidgen of luck. Mach relied more on the third than the first two as he lined up his next set of shots towards the retreating pirate ship. Perhaps in the future he would rely more on the first two, but for now, he was stuck with the third.

As the shell of the electronic world begins to weave itself around Alice, he can see the rainbow snowflake cloud of shimmering EMP, each one that flickers against his avatar burning, a frozen flame of chaos. Still, the inimitable path is threaded, the seed of the jamming algorithm match for the precious milliseconds required to tap automatic access to laser communications, the tight beam near immune to the EMP, allowing the interface of the pirate vessel to manifest itself, resolving as a seventeenth century schooner.

Yet, as he sneaks slowly across the deck towards the main mast, intent on cutting the sails, the squawk of a parrot sounds, and the guardian begins to wake, the ice showing itself as a black-swathed pirate, a pulse of viral code pounding against the man's defenses, the hastily raised firewall, holding for the moment.

Hard Vacuum

Meanwhile, it is almost as one that the fighters of the ragtag freelancer group manage to cause their guns to converge upon the enemy, mass and energy converging in a raging fury of destruction, the pirate fighter unfolding in a lotus blossom of light and heat.

As well, Mach finds his mark at last, one massive slug deflecting from the heavy armor of the pirate mothership, ringing it like a bell, while the other sinks home, pounded in even deeper by the massive rock that slams into like a great hammer striking oversized nail, real snow following behind it now, as the water swirls from the ship's enormous reaction mass tanks, scattering and boiling into tiny crystals of ice in the deep vacuum.

Finally, the Karloff's smart systems make their report, "The ship is not broadcasting in radio, ansible, or laser, Master. The deck light of their cockpit is flashing in a regular pattern. Six short flashes, three long flashes. Attempting cross reference."

Snowy reaction mass urging his trigger finger, Mach watched his reload timer count it's way back down to zero. A faster reload time would also be moved up on his list for the future. Perhaps he could extract something from one of the destroyed pirate vessels, if there were anything worthwhile left floating in the aftermath. The instant the timer hit zero, a thick Oraki finger punched the firing button, sending two metal rounds flying toward the retreating pirate mothership.

Erik scowls at the pirate mothership, and quickly plays the odds in his head. Wounded, finally, the pirate C&C vessel comes in higher on the list now, and he again plots a firing trajectory on the retreating hulk, even as the reaction mass quickly boils into space and flash-freeze against the void. Once again, the dull thump is felt throughout the vessel's body as another slug of nickel-iron is flung through the void after the retreating vessel.

On the commlink, the Salvorathan hails his fellow freelancers. "I don't suppose any of y'know what six short flashes followed by three long flashes would mean? My ship's reportin' a deck light on the freighter we've come to the rescue of stobin' that pattern."

Logged

"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

"No idea, though keep an eye out for ambushes!" Kestral said into the mic. Meanwhile, he armed the fighter's missile(rocket really) launcher and lined up his fighter with the retreating mothers hip. If his teammates heavy weapons didn't do the job, one of these might.

Danasheth silenced the damage messages blinking across her panels, and tuned up the sensors, on the lookout for anything save the retreating pirate freighter - there was little sense in firing her light weapons at it.

Was there anything else? The black depth of space owed her an answer.

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

As your heavy munitions hiss across the void, they make their final impact into the retreating pirate ship, and at last, the enemies engines fall dead, the spray of snow and a curling prominence of blue a brief and even beautiful obituary for the powerplant of the ship. As the actinic arc of artificial solar flame dissipates, the corpse of the ship continues its drift towards the wasteland between the stars, while the crew within dances in panic, maggots giving false life to the body with their motion.

Save the flashing light of the wounded merchantman, there is little to be found here but billowing clouds of vapor, occasionally tinking with the impact of light and simple debris against the hulls of the fleet. Active sensors, too, are able to find larger pieces, the twisted remains of the fighters that held this battle, though they cannot tell you if worthwhile salvage remains within them.

Aboard the merchantman, the flashing lights spread through several other view ports, each calling out the same staccato pattern, though all over they are out of phase with one another, the pattern of short, short, short, pause, short, short, short, pause, long, long, long, pause, short, short, short, pause, short, short, short, pause, long, long, long, pause, repeating its urgent piece of code.

As Danasheth stares out into the depths of space, the burning pinpricks of starlight stare back, uncowed by the brilliant green dot that is Sabrontir, its distance giving courage to them, as they stand bright and steady, save the chance moments when they hide behind one of the scattered pieces of hull. For a moment, the tiny alien's eyes focus on a single star, twinkling through the colors of the rainbow, for a few tens of seconds, until it recedes and is gone, among the thousand other punctures in the veil of the void.

Erik grunts as he takes in the aftermath, and the spread of blinking lights catches his attention; he scowls as he runs some estimates in his head, and keys the rest of the little freelance fleet. "It looks like we've got survivors aboard the merchantman, probably more than I can safely carry unless the crew is Salvorathan - and their ship doesn't look near to warm enough for them to be cousins of mine. Mach, Alice, we're goin' to need to arrange to relay people from the hulk to y'two, no matter what. We might be able to cobble a rough repair to their vessel, to let them limp back to station, if we cannibalize those wrecks... But we have to get the survivors to where we can do triage, first."

As he speaks, the Salvorathan is beginning to maneuver his vessel in toward the crippled merchantman, turning his engineer's eye toward the best spot to dock with the other vessel, be it at an actual airlock or a forced docking. No matter the outcome, rare was the Salvorathan willing to let another die a slow, prolonged death aboard a crippled vessel. To their people, even the harsh brutality of being spaced was preferable to the slow death by cold and darkness such a wreck would give. "If nothin' else, the survivors will be more inclined to remember us favorably, and I'm sure y'know just how valuable that kind of goodwill can be."

A glance at the now-silent blip of the pirate C&C vessel brings a scowl to his features. "Meanwhile, perhaps someone should see about givin' the mercy of the void to that other hulk's inhabitants, so that we can see about harvestin' spare parts from it."

Logged

"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

Danasheth shuddered at the idea of letting the pirates die in the cold wreck, even though she knew very well that exactly that was the right punishment. To fight imagination and get her mind off the brooding, she quickly answered on the comm. "I will enter the merchantman, and steer the survivors towards the exit. Be ready to pick them up, Alice."

What you wish done upon you...

She foled her antennae and put on her suit's helmet. Kizor chirped in his safe-box, and Danasheth checked the seals, before draining the oxygen from the cockpit even as the magnetic clasps of her fighter locked on the much larger ship's hull, resembling a barnacle. Stomping with her magnetic boots, she proceeded to the freighter's airlock. "We're coming to pick you up. Permission to enter?"

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

As the computer finally manages its final lock on, Kestral's guns sound once more, the tiny fighter thumping with the recoil of those few ounces of iron jumping to lethal velocity. The distances are long, and as silicon eyes watch the flight of the projectiles, the idling expert systems of the fighter respond to the query, calling up the statistics of the identifiable merchantman. While the ship's systems are not sensitive enough to detect the markings of life, the vessel has a typical crew of 20, though their purposes are undetailed in the slim database it is attached to.

For long moments, there is radio silence from the merchantman, only the flashing light in response to all attempts to communicate.

Meanwhile, it is with something akin to luck and skill that Erik Starvoid manages to slide a docking adaptor across to the injured ship, a complex dance of orbit around the slowly rotating vessel, whereupon he disappears within, shortly before Danasheth lands and stomps her way across the hull towards a second airlock.

As Erik enters the ship, it is in front of a half a dozen small arms trained upon him by a motley assortment of men, women, and darkly-shaded midgets, as their leader growls across the thin atmosphere, "Friend or Foe, shorty?"

To this, Erik shows his empty hands, his dry response echoing in his ears above the raspy breaths drawn in the room. "If I were foe, I think I'd be usin' my plasma torches to vent your atmosphere instead of dockin', wouldn't I? Y'can stand easy - I've a grudge against void vermin like the ones that were chewin' on you."

"Good point. Weapons down, men, I think he's alone." The rifle barrels come down, as they slowly come up out of their defensive positions. "Sorry about the welcome, but half of them bastards are slavers. Our comms are out, our engines are beaten up, and our engineer is sucking vacuum."

"Slavers. Pfeh." The noise indicates quite well Erik's opinion of slavers. "I'd gathered from the blinking lights that y'were havin' comm trouble." The squat Salvorathan, giving off every appearance of not giving a d**n that there were weapons pointed at him moments before, eases himself forward. "On the plus side for y'lot, however, I'm a ship engineer, and a fairly good one if I say so - though I know y'softgenes take issue with the kind of safety measures I'm used to." The teeth flash in a sardonic grin. "The name's Erik, of Clan Starvoid. My ship back there is the Karloff. Do y'think y'could limp to station if I can get your engines in roughly working order, captain, or do y'have wounded who need evac?"

"At least the old standby still works, huh?" As the merchant captain shrugs, he steps back, waving Erik in the general direction of the engine bay. "We've got atmosphere. I think they wanted to sell the ship off, too. But if you can jump our mains, or hell, just give us a push in the right direction, we can probably limp on in. As for the wounded.. well, we've got an honest medicine man. Can patch us up without putting us in the oven."

Erik gives a nod, and kicks a bit harder into the ship. "Good enough, then. It's good to know y've got a competent stitcher on board - most ships' captains seem to think an expert system and some scramblebrain with a PADD manual is overkill." He produces, from somewhere in the sealed pockets of his jumpsuit, a wrinkled-looking foil wrapper, quickly peeled from a hideously grey-hued protein bar, which he promptly bites a chunk off of; combat, even as simple as one as his part had been, made him hungry. "Right, then. Show me the drive room, and I'll see if I can patch y'up enough to limp home, or if we'll be needin' to play at being in some flatlander carnival cars."

"Company regs." The captain sticks out his tongue, then actually laughs. "'sides, after one of them put my guts back in, I don't mind it so much. Don't ever catch the Angolan Striped Flu. And if I didn't know how irradiated that d**n bar was, I'd tell you to get that biohazard off my ship." For a moment, he turns, and bellows. "Gom! Take this gentleman down to engineering, and help him with whatever he needs." It is another Salvorathan that jets his way forwards then, to the edge of the entry bay, before he twists to look at Erik, his orientation more or less upside down in respect to Starvoid, and most of the rest of the room, in fact.

Erik smirks at the captains quip about the bar being a biohazard as he tears off another bite - the way softgenes compared it to well-aged rat never ceased to amuse him. "Gom, eh?" He presumes the other caught his introduction to the captain, giving his fellow Salvorathan a pleasant nod of greeting. "Good to meet y', cousin, and glad of any aid y'can lend." No longer concerned by the softgenes, Erik doesn't put much effort into maintaining his own orientation to what the rest of the crew is maintaining, drifting slightly clockwise from his perspective from the effort of tearing the ration bar.

The other Salvorathan just nods solemnly in greeting, twisting his body as he jets and pings off the walls. As Erik follows him through the surprisingly large ship, it becomes clear exactly what he is, as he must frequently stop to wait for the other space dwarf, though Erik knows he must be actually moving slower than him, on average - the man is a pilot, and a skilled one at that, for no more optimal path exists that the one he has been taking. When the two reach a portal, he points through it, then gestures to his lips, taking a deep breath.

And as Gom and Erik reach the Engineering, there is an incoherent squeal on the radio, quite possibly from the merchantman, stopping abruptly, and silence reigns from within once more.

Danasheth entered the ship soon after Erik; the atmosphere was thin, with strands of smoke wafting through it. She'd rather keep her helmet on.

The survivors were confused and scared, certainly not a military crew. She singled out the most sober-minded of them. "Help is coming to pick you up, we'll tow the ship. Tell the others to gather the wounded and anything essential, like medicines, and to leave everything unimportant here. Is everybody accounted for? If so, just point me towards your center for damage control, to see what I can do."

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

The loader drone made its way slowly over the pitted hull of Old Ben, its locking pitons attaching and detaching slowly from the hull's mountpoints in typical machine deliberateness.

The remains of the brutal fight morbidly glittered through the viewport, an unwelcome reminder that a short few moments ago, a glowing fragment had traversed this very bridge. Only luck and the skills of his comrade meant that Alice was looking at this scene from the right side of the crystal glass.

By the time the reactor mass leak had been hastily plugged by the drone, Alice had calculated a solution to lock with the slowly spinning merchantman, which, with both Erik's and Dana's Ships already docked, was turning into a crowded place.

Tightcasting to the Karloff, Alice sent his message straight to Erik and Dana on the inside, his voice betraying some of the emotions he felt: "Eric, Dana, I'm on my way. Do you need any materials?"

Toggling off the comm channel Alice turned towards the central console: "Maia, Is Titus ready to help out or is he still fixing our leak?"

Before grabbing his beltkit, Alice bend down over the console to message Eric and Dana on the merchantman "I'm going to connect my ship systems to yours. Standby for power."

"Maia, boost core power to maximum, and switch on the backup systems. I'll manually patch us onto the ship, when its done give them all we have. Patch all comms to my suits. I'm going for an EVA. Open the docking airlock too, and switch our air circulation to max, I'm sure they could use some fresh air."

Having already got into his suit, Alice bumbled to the airlock, not before grabbing the rest of his toolkit.

Needless to say, the battered crew of the merchantman was more than surprised to be greeted by Alice's disembodied voice when the doors opened: "Oh, Hi, Don't mind me, I'm outside plugging into your ship's systems. Be back in a jiffy! The workshop is on you left as you come in, help yourselves to anything you need!"

<ooc> Titus is the drone. Attempt build/repair spaceship roll at 6 to patch Old Ben's systems onto the merchantman to return power, air filtration, etc, etc when done, coming back in for a face to face meeting with the crew of the merchantman </ooc>

Logged

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."-Philip K. Dick

As Danasheth enters the vessel, attention is certainly paid, at least once she is through the airlock. The closest crewman is a large Ssaratha, his gliding membranes flushed with blood, a symbol of stress. While confusion appears to reign throughout the ship, at least upon the surface, the command structure is strong, and this one is high in it, grabbing crewmen and shouting at them as they pass, his lizardlike accent thick and strong. The boarder, too, is accosted nearly as soon as she enters, a his scaly face drawing back into a tight grin as he listens to her. It is not a pleasing sight, nor does any happiness lurk behind it. "Tow? Yesss, kids, unless ones of those void-breathers is able to get the engine going, we're goings to needs a slings, but we can'ts moves the hurts out of sick bays untils the bone-saws is dones. We have airs, at leasts in some places, just not thrusts!"

Following Gom's gesture, Erik draws in several breaths, purging his lungs and hyper-oxygenating his blood, before the other space-dwarf palms open the doorway, opening directly onto the void that is the engine room. Exposed directly to space, the nictating membrane close over each Salvorathan's eyes, and while Erik propels himself into the chamber, digging for his multi-tool, Gom hangs back, holding fast to a panel near the doorway.

Surprisingly, the tremendous room is in good shape, it's just been dumped into the void, and had some very critical lines ruptured. Specifically, the main fuel line into the fusion generator has been severed, and it hisses hydrogen into the void, the liquid flow boiling away into tiny flakes, not entirely unlike snow. It is with great effort, and a heavy heave on his breath-pack that Erik is able to twist the manual shut off to the line. The automatics, it seems, are vapor expanding into the void now.

Working on the instinct of a packrat, Erik then patches the line. Invoved are no more, and no less, than the former engineer's chair, some of the cooling slag of the previous wall, bubblegum, and a healthy portion of the irradiated ration that he had been previously eating. Sturdy, no, close to gas tight, yes. A quick scan of the system, and he locates a small leak to the coolant lines, a bit more of his gunk reparing that, and clearing the way for a slow rise of the reactor containment. Slow and steady wins the day here as well, for on the way up, the dwarf is forced to realign a single magnet on the containment field - a simple repair, but critical to the non-explosion of the reactor. The ship will still need its time in drydock, but now it just might be able to get there, if it is not attacked again.

As the reactor comes up, all and sundry can feel the hum of the ship begin anew, life-support reappearing with a surprising thump throughout the hull as the fans begin to blow air once more, at least to the segments that the computer can see as still having pressure. A quick check more, and Erik and Gom begin to withdraw, towards the ship itself, as it begins to thrum with the live feeling of a running reactor.

Across the merchantman, a ragged cheer goes up, lead by the mate that Danasheth had confronted. "Ssss! Perhaps we pulls into docks after all." His clawed forefinger points up the hallways, then, as he looks in it. "Go thats ways, though, little spacers. The Captains will wants to speaks with yous."

Meanwhile, as Alice sorties outside his own ship, the full extent of the damage to Old Ben becomes apparent. It is disheartening to look at, at first, but the availability of relatively simple machining tools will make somewhat sturdier repairs possible, though again, dry-dock time will be desirable. Still, with determination in head, the basic repairs to make the ship habitable are relatively easily accomplished, between robot and master, sealant being deployed as neccesary. As the hookups to the other ship are made, direct line comms with them finally coming on line, the quick identification of friend, rather than foe, and the request coming down to Alice for plate metal and maybe a radio unit if one can be spared. While the radio is simple for Alice to supply, the hull plating required is enough to put a serious strain on the Old Bens current raw material storage, if it is supplied in full.

(OOC: Repair is a success. Old Ben is functional, but not up to 'combat shape'. You can act without penalty, but your 'hp' is still redlined.)

As the others work on the injured merchant man, Kestral has been flying overwatch, pulling a simple orbit, while trying to pick out the choicer bits for salvage. Some tempting bits float - entire wings and turrets, as well as a few small cargo compartments float among the assorted rubble.

Erik, for his part, signals his gratitude to Gom's aid - without the other Salvorathan's keen eyesight, he might have missed the small coolant leak - a situation that would have been disastrous for the merchantman in a relatively short period of time, then - as the air repressurizes and the two set off along back toward the airlock where he entered, he sniffs the air and grins, detecting the telltale scent and faint motion of a life support system in action.

When the pilot leads him to where the Ssaratha is dealing with Danasheth, the Salvorathan gives the flier a thumbs-up. "Y'have a workin' reactor, but I'd advise against tryin' to push it any if y'can avoid it, for any reason." He points a thumb at Gom, as the other departs to attend his duties, now that his part in the dance is done. "I've faith he'll get y'there without hurtin' the engines, at least." He nods to his fellow freelancer, and gestures to her to precede him the way the creture points; he's going to be spending his trek down the passage watching for other signs of life-threatening danger to the softgenes filling out the crew - and finishing off what little of his ration bar he didn't use to patch up the vessel's leaks, noisily ripping it apart with his teeth as he glides down the passage.

Logged

"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

Kestral thumbed his communicator. "Someone else take a turn keeping a lookout? I caught some flak in the skirmish and I need to check my kite out for issues."

Not really waiting for a reply, he set his computer to relay its sensor feeds to his helmet display. He did a quick check of his suit for any issues and then hooked up the EVA tether. Ready, he depressurized the cockpit and opened it to cold space.

What he saw did not impress him. He was actually amazed the kite had held together. One of the beams had stopped only centimeters short of one of the main fuel tanks. His fighter was nearly scrap.

Not willing to trust the comms with that information, he instead climbed back into the fighter and made ready to rendezvous with one of the other larger ships.

<ooc - does any of the ships have a fighter bay? Kestral looks like he might need to act as a gunner for the time being...>

Danasheth could feel the wave of relief wash over her, and could not avoid riding on it, so strong was it. The wounded freighter could drag itself to safety, at least. She knew of the strong connection spacers had to their ships, seeing them as home and workplace in one.

Following the Ssaratha, she walked along towards the meeting with the captain - and making him a friend. Those are always useful in the depths of space. Especially when you're four feet tall and a fugitive.

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

Old Ben was bruised and battered, but by the gods of space, this wouldn't be the end of her. Indeed, the fact that she was still holding air indicated this was not the worse she had seen, by far.

Upon returning inside his ship, Alice cornered the nearest Merchantman crewmember and gave the radio unit. Going the the Engineering store himself, Alice split the spare hull plating in two, bringing half to the Nearest tech of the merchantman, Doubtless that the much larger merchantman would have access to some tools to help patch Old ben further.

<ooc: Am splitting plate metal in half. One for them, one for me.>

However, this was only a partial reason for his trip. In a nonchalant and offhand manner, Alice asks the simple question: "So, what are you carrying anyway?" While carefully studying the reaction of the tech, wary that such a well armed band of pirates would most likely be after something specific. Still keeping a disinterested tone and attitude, Alice's curiosity forces him to ask about the freighter's origin, and its destination.

<ooc: request for machining tools to patch up old ben, attempt to get cargo, destination and origin information from chief engineering officer>

After his conversation with the chief, Alice makes his way through the merchantman, asking for the captain, and taking in the smells of the ship.

A lot could be told from the smell of a ship.

The ship smelt of fresh work sweat overlying fear, iron and ozone. The sharp smell of camphor also rose through the air, a clear tale of the recent brush with pirates, overpowering the subtler fragrances. Each ship had its own smell, and no doubt, Old Ben would smell as alien to the crewmen as their ship smelt to alice.

Before reaching the captain Alice spoke straight to Maia: "Maia, can you patch comms from the rest of the troupe here? They'll probably want to listen in." Seeing Kestral's request on his commscreen, Alice replied straight to him: "Kestral, you can get your fighter in my hold if you want. Maia will open the doors for you."

<ooc: am also grabbing a medic on the way top let him know that Old Ben's medroom is available if they need.>

« Last Edit: November 06, 2009, 07:18:31 AM by dark_dragon »

Logged

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."-Philip K. Dick

As the freelancers make their separate ways through the merchantman, all converging towards the fore of the ship, Alice's question is answered by the locatable technician, as he swaps and solders away in the primary comm facility, doing his best to bring the ship's communications back on line. "If you really want to donate it, bud, just leave it in the hallway out there. It'll have to wait." For a moment, the swarthy man prods around in the electronics again, flipping a switch to a shower of sparks and a string of curses. "Cargo? Colony supplies, I guess. Wouldn't be delivering much else to a rot-hole star like this one, now would we? Cap'n said something about medical supplies of one sort or another. Guess it must have some value to it. Course, you get far enough into the black, and those bastards will hit you just for your ox tank."

The medic, meanwhile, is rather busy. As Alice passes to pop his head in, the human sawbones strikes the patient on his table with one cocked fist, slamming the struggling, panicking Salvorathan patient in the solar plexus, producing the normal gasping reflex, after which the panicked man starts to calm down, having finally been forced to breathe in the sedative. "Next time I tell you to breathe, you breathe, boy!" Discretion being the better part of valor, Alice continues towards the front of the ship.

Similar scenes play throughout the ship, as double-trained shifters are pressed into place for secondary duties, completing them to greater or lesser success. At the front, however, is the captain, and Danasheth, the first to enter the room, has the split second to witness the great aura of exhaustion as he shoves up out of the chair at the head of the table, twisting almost lazily to bank off the room's orientational ceiling, and come to rest behind the chair, a brief word from his lips seeming to seal him to the 'ground' as if there were gravity.

As the others float into the room, mere moments later, escorts leave, and the captain manages a brief sigh, and a nod to the three of them. "Welcome, freelancers, to the Long Haul. I'm afraid I can't offer much in the way of hospitality at the moment, but it look like I do owe you a thanks - More than one, in fact. Maybe more than just a thanks, too."

Meanwhile, Kestral lands easily within the empty bays of the Old Ben, wincing as the kite creaks and groans with the soft impact at on the floor of the bay. There will be quite a deal of work to be done.

Erik, drifting in almost lazily, corrects his motion with some careful touches to the door as he passes it, bringing him to a near-perfect stop half a meter or so behind Danasheth, and a full meter off the floor; his only motion is a slight clockwise rotation in regards to the captain's point of view, slowly tilting off the vertical. "I can't speak for the others, but any chance to crush some fool space vermin is a chance I'm glad to take." The Salvorathan's face twists into a grin as he speaks. "Clan Starvoid isn't fond of scum like them - and the wreckage can fetch a fair enough price, to be sure." He waggles his hairless brows, "Not that I'd be one to be turnin' down any offers you might make us, that is."

Logged

"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."